Burrell QL "Are "sleeping beauties" to be expected? " Scientometrics 65(3):381-389 December 2005.

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail Addresses: q.burrell at ibs.ac.im

Title: Are "sleeping beauties" to be expected?

Author(s): Burrell QL

Source: SCIENTOMETRICS 65 (3): 381-389 DEC 2005

Document Type: Article    Language: English
Cited References: 13      Times Cited: 0

Abstract:
A paper that is little cited ('sleeps') for a long period of time and then
becomes much cited ('is awakened'), has been termed by van Raan (2004)
a 'Sleeping Beauty', or a paper that was 'ahead of its time'. The inference
is that the importance of the paper was not initially recognised, only
later was it (re)discovered. On the other hand, much theoretical work in
informetrics views the citation process as being purely random - modelled
by an appropriate stochastic process. From this point of view,
the 'awakening' could simply be a matter of chance without necessarily
saying anything about the worth of the paper. The question therefore arises
as to whether such awakenings can be explained or expected purely by the
random nature of the model or whether they are so unlikely that an
alternative explanation should be sought. In this note we express the
notion of a Sleeping Beauty in terms of a well-known stochastic model and
seek to answer this question, at least in general terms.

Addresses: Burrell QL (reprint author), Isle Man Int Business Sch, The
Nunnery,Old Castletown Rd, Douglas, Man IM2 1QB England
Isle Man Int Business Sch, Douglas, Man IM2 1QB England

E-mail Addresses: q.burrell at ibs.ac.im

Publisher: SPRINGER, VAN GODEWIJCKSTRAAT 30, 3311 GZ DORDRECHT, NETHERLANDS
Subject Category: COMPUTER SCIENCE, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS;
INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE
IDS Number: 971XN

ISSN: 0138-9130


EXCERPT - Concluding Remarks

So  what  has  the  foregoing  analysis  managed  to  demonstrate?
Firstly,  that moderately aroused Sleeping Beauties might very well be
expected, assuming that the basic  model  and  suggested  parameter
values  are  appropriate  in  the  context  of  the application.  On  the
other  hand  we  have  failed  to  demonstrate  that  outrageous Sleeping
Beauties -  those  lying  dormant  for  a  long  period  but  then
bursting  into hyperactive life! - might be expected. Why might that be?
The first reason is that the assumed parametric model is incorrect and we
would acknowledge that we have pushed it far beyond its originally proposed
purpose – from a relatively small, well-defined, and homogeneous  set  of
papers  to  the  very  large multidisciplinary  collection  analysed  by
van  Raan.  The  other,  and  perhaps more  intuitively  satisfying,
obvious  reason  is  that these examples are indeed special and in some
way "before their time".

In statistical parlance, these extreme examples would be termed ‘outliers’
and in a proper analysis they would not be excluded or ignored; rather one
would seek to explain their occurrence by going beyond the model. By this
we mean going back to the original data, identifying the  actual  source
–  in  this  case  the  cited  paper and  looking  at  the wider context to
see why this particular observation has occurred. This is what has been
done by GLÄNZEL et al. (2003).

Thus  we  would  argue  that  informetrics/scientometrics  is  not  just
a  matter  of mathematical/statistical modelling (or analysis) but should
always be directly addressed at a particular problem by taking full account
of its context.

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BURRELL QL
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